New portal to check authenticity of marksheets

The HRD ministry has set up a dedicated portal, National Academy Depository, which will eventually have database of all marksheets issued by senior secondary school boards and higher education institutions in India.

The HRD ministry has set up a dedicated portal, National Academy Depository, which will eventually have database of all marksheets issued by senior secondary school boards and higher education institutions in India.

To start with, the depository will have marksheets of Central Board for Secondary Education examination 2011 and Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), whose results will be declared on Tuesday.

“The candidates can check their results on the website of the depository,” HRD minister Kapil Sibal said. The website address is http://nad.ndml.in.

The database by National Academy Depository would facilitate online verification of academic awards issued by boards and universities, thereby identifying attempts made to use fake and forged academic certificates.

In addition, students can also overcome their fear of losing a certificate as they too would be able to access the database anytime and anywhere.

Sibal, however, assured that enough cyber security mechanism have been installed to prevent illegal access. A person or an institution will have to register first. The website will generate a unique login and a password to access the mark-sheets. Thereafter, a person or the institution will be able to access mark-sheets of a particular roll numbers.

But, the CBSE which has outsourced running of the website to a private party was unable to answer how it will prevent misuse of the database.

Sibal also said that the ministry was bringing a legislation to make it mandatory for all educational institutions across India to provide their degrees and mark-sheets to the portal for verification. “Once that happens in next two to three years we will have a composite depository of all students,” he said.